Transparency: Ownership and Revenue

Snopes.com as a business entity is operated as an S corporation registered in the state of California.

Snopes.com primarily derives its revenue from advertising displayed on the site: we have no active sponsors, donors, investors, or other regular sources of income. Advertisers have no contact with the site’s editorial staff and do not in any way influence the content we publish. Any changes to Snopes.com revenue and monetization strategy will be reflected on this page.

In 2016, Snopes.com did receive a one-time award of $75,000 from the James Randi Educational Foundation as part of an annual award given by that foundation to “a person or organization who best represents the spirit of the foundation in providing unbiased, fact based answers to confusing questions.”

In 2017, we raised approximately $700,000 from a crowd-sourced GoFundMe effort.

In calendar year 2016, the revenues earned by Snopes.com were used as follows: